Cool, non-traditional men’s wedding ring:
On August 3, 2010, In Symbols, By Wes
On July 30, 2010, In furniture, By Wes
Check out some of this amazing furniture from BFD founder Andy Gregg. Using used bicycles, Gregg and Co. create some pretty radical furniture. We loves.
On July 8, 2010, In art, By Wes
Howard Finster is my favorite American artist. I was introduced to him by my Dad when I was younger; at first I just loved that he wrote all over his “canvases” and seemed a bit nuts. That he lived and worked in my homestate of Georgia only grew my affection. But, as I’ve grown up, the paintings, carvings and sculptures have come to mean more.
Finster was a deeply religious man convinced in a vision from the lord that he should paint. He created thousands of folk art pieces over his life, including his home, Paradise Gardens, which became an ever-changing permanent exhibit of carving, painting, paint-penning, chalk-drawing, sculpture, agriculture, and architecture. When he died the place fell into disrepair, but it has since been put under the protection of the state, and volunteers are working now to restore it to it’s former glory.
Finster’s un-precious, un-precocious, un-pretentious works of art are the mad, wonderful scatterings of a brilliantly fractured mind and talent. They’re so much fun, they look so good, they’re so honest and American. See them in the Smithsonian or in Northwest Georgia; they’re folk art at it’s purest and least complicated.
On June 14, 2010, In art, By Wes
I watched the popular 2007 documentary My Kid Could Paint That over the weekend, and I came away very interested, stimulated, and impressed. The story is one of a 4 year old child, Marla Olmstead, who executes beautiful abstract paintings on large (for her size) canvases. They sell for upwards of $20,000. Something funny though; whenever a camera was recording Marla paint, the work she did was sub-par. It looked like what it was, a four year old girl getting dirty and smearing paint over a canvas. The end results were not, seemingly, as good as the other paintings she’d produced and sold. Her parents explained it away by saying she was nervous, she did silly things, etc. Here the plot thickens; the father is an amateur artist himself. 60 Minutes did an expose on the family, essentially declaring Marla a fraud. The Olmsteads retaliated by releasing their own DVD, The Making of Ocean, which shows Marla making a painting from beginning to end, apparently with no help. This was the result:
For a child not yet old enough for Kindergarden, that’s not bad at all. But is it art? One of the more essential questions asked in the doc is: What is the worth of modern art? If “your kid could paint that,” does that mean it’s not art? Is a 4 year old capable of great art, of interpretive genius? Do you measure worth through the value of the paintings?
Look again at Ocean. Notice a few things about it.
The lines on the painting are mostly thick. With a few variations, the lines are thick and unsteady. The colors are unsophisticated in a cohesive sense. We see very little mixing between colors, between “zones.” When color is mixed, it’s not done with a deft or sophisticated sense; it’s merely on top of another color, or smeared. There are no brushstrokes, no clear intermingling of complimentary color. There are Mickey Mouse ears.
Now look at some of Marla’s other paintings; paintings which have sold for huge amounts of money, and which the Olmsteads claim she did herself, with no help or input whatsoever.
Take note of the fine, thin lines. The sophisticated mixing of colors to achieve the muted backgrounds. Note how the backgrounds fade into one another. Notice how the colors are complimentary. Notice how the same symbols are repeated with integrity and reasonable precision.
Here we have a super-advanced sense of blending, color, brushwork, and, again, complimentary color.
Decide for yourself. Decide this as well; how do we judge modern art?
My Kid Could Paint That was directed by Amir Bar-Lev.
On May 19, 2010, In Uncategorized, By Wes
We here at Basis love crossword puzzles. The mental exercise, the satisfaction of a puzzle solved, the constant inventory taken of the facts and figures collected in the mind, and the ingenious, meticulous design all form an extremely pleasant way to pass the time.
The original crossword puzzle was published in 1890, in Italy. Featuring only a four by four square it was titled “Per passare il tempo,” or “A way to pass the time.” It was written by Giuseppe Airoldi, a full 23 years before the commonly referenced “first crossword” penned by Arthur Wynne in 1913 and appearing in the New York World. Interesting side note: the New York Times, undoubtedly our preeminent creator and purveyor of quality crosswords, published many scathing editorials calling the puzzles a waste of time, and even sinful. It was not until 1942, half a century after the puzzles made their first appearance, that the NYT deigned to include them within it’s pages. Underneath is what has been considered the most difficult puzzle of all time, published in the December 26th Saturday edition of the New York Times:
| ACROSS | 4 | Leaflet-base appendage | ||||
| 1 | Benchley novel | 5 | Rosary bead | |||
| 5 | Harsh | 6 | O.S.S. successor | |||
| 10 | Levantine coffee cup | 7 | He, in Tarantao | |||
| 14 | He was: Lat. | 8 | Space | |||
| 15 | Kepi part | 9 | Sultanate in Borneo | |||
| 16 | Coloratura Mills | 10 | Buddhist sect | |||
| 17 | Cause disappointment | 11 | Schoenberg’s “Moses und —–” | |||
| 20 | Vale of —–, near 71 Across | 12 | Lavabo | |||
| 21 | Hawks’ arena | 13 | Trilbies | |||
| 22 | Insect catcher | 18 | Japanese kombu ingredient | |||
| 23 | Tyrrhenian Sea island | 19 | Annuli | |||
| 26 | Elway target | 24 | Oswego tea | |||
| 28 | Certain estimates | 25 | Direction from Levine | |||
| 36 | Midianite ruler | 27 | Defunct Russian parliament | |||
| 37 | Fabulist | 28 | Father of King Hadad: Gen. 36:35 | |||
| 38 | Silvery fish | 29 | Dispatch boat | |||
| 39 | Beanie | 30 | Great Wall town | |||
| 41 | Hills | 31 | A U.N. member: Var. | |||
| 43 | —– spumante | 32 | Raisin capital of the world | |||
| 44 | “—– Like It” | 33 | Remnants, in Roma | |||
| 46 | Scarf | 34 | Author of “The Augustan Ages” | |||
| 47 | High fashion | 35 | Bee bite | |||
| 48 | Gambler’s plunge | 40 | Honshu port | |||
| 52 | Abstract being | 42 | Kind of steward | |||
| 53 | The Cornish Wonder | 45 | Cubiti | |||
| 54 | Sharp turn | 49 | Portuguese dollar | |||
| 57 | A-one | 50 | Rail supports | |||
| 60 | —– salts | 51 | Swinger in the 40′s | |||
| 64 | Avenges | 54 | Eastern Roman emperor | |||
| 68 | English river | 55 | He played Big Daddy | |||
| 69 | Catfish | 56 | Roman family group | |||
| 70 | Trammell of baseball | 58 | Poetry of a people | |||
| 71 | Thessaly peak | 59 | Sights on the Atl. | |||
| 72 | Georgian Aryan | 61 | One-man shows | |||
| 73 | Sharp point | 62 | City having a casbah | |||
| DOWN | 63 | Ancient wall word | ||||
| 1 | Rigoletto’s forte | 65 | Teachers’ org. | |||
| 2 | Prada offering | 66 | Have, in Haddington | |||
| 3 | Cordial | 67 | N.Y.C. time zone |
On May 3, 2010, In art, By Wes
We’re always happy to shine our benevolent spotlight on worthy local designers, and Gregory Byrd is definitely one of them. His hand-crafted boxes, bookmarks, desk accessories and bins are one of a kind wood-worked wonders (A lot of alliteration from anxious anchors). Go to his website at vesselarts.com for more.
